


Table Six

by izzydragon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Crying, Human Castiel, M/M, Mentions of Prostitution, Pining, Reunions, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 12:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izzydragon/pseuds/izzydragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years have passed since Cas has seen the Winchesters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Table Six

**Author's Note:**

> my angsty reaction to the 'dean's going to be forced to kick cas out of the bunker' 'spoilers' :)

“Cas.”

Castiel looks over to where Dean is sitting at the kitchen table stiffly, eyes tight and morose as his fingernails absentmindedly scratch along the rough surface of the table.

It’s a day like any other has been in the Men of Letters’ bunker as of late. Cas is tired and making breakfast, (well – cereal, but he’s still very proud) Dean is stuffy and quiet, and Sam is…weird. The three of them (excluding Kevin, who avoids them all as a whole) shuffle around each other during the day like they never have before. The dynamic is threadbare, and it feels like something is coming ever closer to cutting the cord. This will be the first time that Dean has even been able to look at Cas for days.

Cas acknowledges him with a questioning ‘hm?’ and goes back to trying to pour his milk just so he gets that perfect Fruit Loops-to-milk ratio.

“Would you-,” he takes a breath, “C’mere for a minute. Please?”

His tone sounds serious, and his face is pulling a decidedly unpleasant expression, so Cas abandons his cereal and goes ahead to sit opposite Dean at the table, the sound of the chair is unreasonably loud in the wide room. He sits with his elbows resting on the wood, joining his hands together, “How can I help, Dean?” he says earnestly.

Dean shuts his eyes and swallows, hands wringing together, “I’m gonna need you do to something for me,” his voice is watery and his jaw clenched.

“Anything.”

And Dean knows he means it – _God_ \- does Dean know he means it. 

He steels himself, planting his feet firmly onto the ground beneath the table, trying to swallow down whatever is threatening to crawl up his throat and choke him until he forgets, just forgets the purpose of this talk all together.

“I need you to-,” he stops abruptly, clearing his throat. Cas’ eyebrows furrow worriedly.

Dean takes a deep breath in through his nose.

“I’m gonna need you to go, Cas.”

He’s looking directly at Cas, but his eyes are blank and vacant, and Cas can’t read them. He tastes bitterness on the tip of his tongue.

Blue eyes flicker down as he seems to shrink in on himself, placing his hands under the table between his knees, palms pressed flat together in some unconscious semblance of a prayer, hunching his back. He looks down and he wonders what he did wrong.

“I-,” Cas takes in a sharp breath, searching Dean’s face for something, _anything_ , “I understand.”

But of course, he does not understand. But he figures he deserves it anyway. 

And that’s that.

\----------------------------------------- 

Cas cries in his room that night whilst packing his socks into a faded knapsack he finds under his bed. His bed. _“Not anymore,”_ he thinks. 

And he does not sleep for a single minute. Instead looking out of the small window right at the top of his bedroom wall, feeling the moonlight on his arms as tears run quietly down his face. His skin crawls. And he feels so _very small_.

At points during the night he hears Sam and Dean arguing around various areas of the bunker, as if one of them is chasing the other down, hushed voices ricocheting off of the walls.

_“Why? What the hell has gotten into your head? Cas needs us, needs to be here right now. Why, Dean?”_

_“It’s for the best, Sam.”_

_“I don’t even know who you are right now Dean. I really don’t.”_

\--------------------------------------------

In the morning he feels heavy, like he’s somehow closer to the ground, close enough to smell the dirt, to be buried.

Sam and Dean are standing there waiting for him when he emerges from his room, ready to go. Sam looks angry, sad and furious. Eyes drooped and sympathetic but mouth tightly pressed shut. Dean just looks calm. Too calm.

He carries his lone bag to the door and places it at the threshold as he goes to hug Dean goodbye, but Dean quickly stops him with a hard pat to his shoulder and a tight grin, “Take care, man,” he mumbles, crossing his arms and shifting his feet.

“Cas,” Sam sighs, shaking his head, “Stay, please. C’mon, we can work this all out I-.”

“No, Sam,” Dean says firmly, his calmness becoming more frightening with each passing second, “He’s gotta go.”

Sam engulfs Cas in a tight hug, pulling the shorter man’s head into his warm shoulder. Both men have wet eyes and are sniffing as they part. Dean is still calm.

Cas looks down, one tear spilling over, “Goodbye Sam,” he shifts his gaze to the elder Winchester, “Dean.”

And Castiel leaves.

\-----------------------------------------

Cas leaves, and three months later he’s still gone. 

After the past three months of getting his money in ways he’d rather forget - along with the bruises and the layer of grime clinging to his flesh - he is approached by a young woman with auburn hair and a kind face called April who offers him a bed for the night. 

At first he is confused by her tenderness, but he isn’t stupid, nor is he unaware of how attraction works. But as he buries his face into her soft shoulder, sweaty and panting, he is overwhelmed once more by the feeling of positive human touch that he has so craved for the past lonesome three months. As Cas is racked with orgasm, he sobs pathetically. April holds him through the night and kisses his cheek as he leaves the next morning.

\------------------------------------------

After 10 months of waiting and desperately recharging his phone at every single chance that he gets, Cas decides that Dean isn’t going to ask him to come back.

He throws his phone into the river, and he is alone.

\-------------------------------------------

The day after he decides to stop awaiting Dean’s call, he sits on a park bench with a rough and dirty flannel blanket over his knees, the scratching coldness a damp taste upon his dry tongue.

He thinks it’s mid-November, if the bare trees and softly falling sleet are anything to go by, but he found it difficult to keep track sometimes. 

Kids are playing in the grass wearing puffy coats, their cheeks rosy and happy. Cas looks down at his own clothes: A pair of Dean’s worn jeans, one of Sam’s hoodies – that was probably soft and warm at one point – with a shirt he found in a laundromat. Cas doesn’t care much for the symmetry.

He is snapped out of his thoughts when he feels a small, tentative tug on his pants leg.

It’s a child. A boy wearing a puffy green coat with a furry hood and a wooly hat with a bobble at the top and a bright, wide face. The boy is looking at him with large, clear green eyes. Cas looks around for the boy’s parents, but he can’t spot any agitated looking adults.

“Hello,” Cas says with a soft smile, “Can I help you?”

The boy shuffles his feet a bit and plunges one hand into his pocket, bringing it out a second later, something in his grip. He puts whatever is in his hand on Cas’ knee.

It’s a chocolate bar, opened slightly, with a small nibble taken out of one corner.

“You looked sad,” the boy mumbles nervously, “Chocolate always makes me happy.”

And as the boy scampers away when he is called over, Castiel remembers how he ended up here in the first place, and he reckons that yeah, this is worth it.

He _aches_ for Dean.

\-----------------------------------------

Cas continues. He discovers that the world does still in fact turn even if Dean isn’t around, and he has to learn to move with it. He doesn’t want to wait anymore, to be a stationary object in a world of constantly moving variables all for the sake of someone who will never ask him to come back.

He goes on to live, to hope. He takes care of himself. After around a year and half of visiting it every day, he is given a job at a small establishment with a drive-thru called ‘Lazarus’ Diner’ by the owner, a kind yet bossy woman called Nora. Cas likes it there.

After a few months of working at the diner, he has enough money saved up to rent himself a small apartment two blocks away. The place is grimy and damp and smells of rot in places, but it has a bed and running water and for now, it’s his home.

\-------------------------------------------

Days, weeks, months and eventually, 5 years pass since Cas has seen the Winchesters. He never realised just how long years could be; when he was an angel, time was inconsequential, arbitrary, but now time ran his life. He had a time to get up in the morning so he could get to work on time, a time a shower, a time for his break, a time to go home, a time to watch his weekly documentaries, a time to sleep.

He’s since been promoted a handful of times and thus rented a bigger, nicer apartment a little bit closer to the diner with two bedrooms, a TV and clean, cream walls.

He even has a spare cupboard where he can keep his Fruit Loops.

Even though he barely gets time to think about them anymore, he feels the weight of the Winchesters sitting heavy in his chest sometimes - a brilliant yet unobtainable destructive force, powering through his gut like a steam train. But he swallows it down; he always does. Because table 4 needs a refill, and Cas prides himself on efficiency.

He carries on.

\------------------------------------------

It’s a normal day, a Thursday. 

So it’s his turn to open up the diner. With the taste of toothpaste and Fruit Loops still in his mouth, he blearily opens door with the key, shuffling inside, rubbing his eyes.

He hangs up his peacoat and looks around at the bright interior, as he makes sure everything is in order; tables are even, the lights are all on, the machines get kick started. By the time the other staff members begin to stumble in one by one he’s already putting some fresh pastry on display, taking his time to feel the place wake up alongside him. He wishes the cash register a silent _‘good morning’_ as he sets some change into the right compartments.

Through the glass he sees Nora kiss her husband goodbye as she exits her car and he smiles slightly to himself. They’re a good pair, he thinks, both as stubborn as each other, with full laughs and smiling faces.

The boy at the cash register today blushes when Cas wishes him a good morning, so really no one can blame him if he rolls up his sleeves arches his back slightly more than is strictly necessary when leaning at the table near to him. It’s harmless, Cas thinks. Fun.

Lazarus’ Diner is buzzing around midday, and Cas is humming to himself as he wanders through the cooking area, making sure everybody is doing okay, smiling as he passes.

As he exits the back and enters the lobby, two things catch Cas’ attention:

One: there is an obscenely large slice of pie cooling at the counter ready to be taken to the drive-thru.

Two: there is a monstrosity of a black car in the drive-thru bay, who Cas assumes is the intended owner of said pie. But this car is not any car. 

It’s the Impala.

He doesn’t think, only vaguely hears Nora calling his name over the sound of his own heart beating along to the thud of his feet hitting the damp tarmac as he runs outside and around the corner of the building towards the black car as it drives away. The world stops turning.

Cas keeps running and by some miracle, just before the car gets to the exit of the parking lot, it stills to a stop.

He stands there, eyes wide, chest heaving as the car door opens, and his mind cries, _Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean_.

Dean gets out of the car.

The two men stand, just looking, just processing the moment. That they are sharing the same ground, they are both on this earth and they are both here and they are Dean and Cas, and they are five years parted, but they are _here_.

Dean looks softer, plumper around the middle, his jeans button straining slightly. His face has more lines than it used to, eyes dimmer somehow even as wide as they are right now. He is standing there, big bright mouth open and face reaching.

“Cas?” the word falls from his mouth, uncertain and desperate.

Cas digs his nails into his palms, _‘He sent you away, Castiel, remember that_.’

“Hello Dean.”

\---------------------------------------

“So, nice job – well, it looks like – you’re really settled here, Cas.”

“Yes.”

“Not getting into too much trouble I hope.”

“No, Dean.”

“Sam’s completely better by the way, no more weirdness.”

“I’m glad.”

“Heh, that woman, what’s her name? Nora? You and her – you know-.”

Castiel smacks one hand onto the table in exasperation, not loud enough to cause a scene, “Dean, what are we doing?”

Dean looks across Table Six at him from where he sits with his shoulders hunched and his hands wringing together, knuckles turning white.

“We’re talkin’, man,” he chuckles despondently.

Cas sees red, but calms himself, “I’m at _work_ , Dean, and don’t you think that the time for talking passed about five years ago?”

The look in Dean’s eyes shifts suddenly, turning from longing to dangerous and closed off. He can practically see Dean mentally retreating.

“I want,” he closes his eyes tightly, opens them, and his eyes a clearer, “I want you to come home.”

Cas feels his heart tug, he burns, and he aches to say yes, _finally. Take me home_.

But he forces himself to say: “That’s not my home anymore, Dean,” and if his voice hitches, then Dean doesn’t notice. He then proceeds to gently slide from his chair to head for the exit, “Excuse me.”

Of course Dean follows him outside, and he cant even bring himself to be angry with the man.

“Cas, please-.”

He whips around to face Dean, “Don’t you dare _‘Cas, please’_ me, Winchester,” pointing a halfheartedly threatening, wobbly finger at him, “You don’t get to do that.”

“Just let me _talk_ Cas, c’mon,” Dean is frustrated now, lines forming on his forehead.

Cas purses his lips and fumbles into his pocket for a cigarette, looking to the sky and trying to breathe

“Since when the fuck do you smoke, Cas?” Dean’s voice is no longer pleading, just angry.

“Since around three years and a half ago, they calm me down, okay?” Cas keeps his voice steady.

Face suddenly shut down even more; green eyes look at Cas like he’s a stranger, and it fucking scares him.

“I don’t know you anymore.”

Dean’s face is carefully blank as he speaks, just like it was all those years ago, on that awful, foggy day. Cas thinks he can feel it starting to rain.

He gives up on the cigarette, and turns to face the other man fully, taking in the tears in his tight eyes, the tightening of his fist, and the firm clenching of his jaw.

From above them, a crow screeches.

“I wouldn’t think you’d want to anyway,” Cas whispers, mostly to himself.

“Cas,” Dean heaves in a breath face opening up again, “I need you.”

“I know,” he reaches up to brush his hair back from where it tickles his eyebrows, “I needed you too, Dean.”

They’d never been on the same level like this ever before, open and vulnerable, ready and prepared. It’s a shame that it had to be now. To little, much too late.

“But you threw me away, remember? I needed you and you threw me out.” 

“I-,” Dean sweeps a hand down his face tiredly, “There was a lot of things going on, okay? There was this angel, Ezekiel, and Sam was- you know what? It doesn’t matter anyway Cas, because now I’ve finally found you and you can come home,” he looks Cas in the eye, earnest, “Won’t you come home?”

Cas releases a shaky breath.

“And don’t go acting so fucking persecuted, alright?” Dean is getting fired up again, “What about all those times you left me, huh? Do those not count? Or ain’t I allowed to be hurt, huh, Cas?”

“Of course you are, I’m jus-.”

“No, fuck you,” the green-eyed man takes a step closer, eyebrows furrowing, “Fucking fuck you Cas.”

And Dean crumbles.

He bends his face towards the sky as the tears come, covering his face with his hands. Salty tears mixing with the thin droplets of rain and forming rivulets down his face.

Cas can’t bear it, he walks over to the man and pulls him into a tight hug, “Shh, Dean. I’m here. I’m here, Dean,” stroking a hand down the back of the tawny head as he shakes with soft, silent sobs.

The two stand like that for a few minutes, Dean’s arms eventually snaking their way around Cas’ waist. Nora looks out the window at them with concern in her eyes, so Cas sends her a small grimace and a nod to reassure her. The rain is getting heavier.

Dean eventually stills, his sobs tapering off until he is just snuffling into Cas’ shoulder, “We’re really a pair, huh.”

“Yeah.” Cas squeezes his eyes shut.

When they do part, there is a palpable distance between them again – as if a magnet has wedged its way between the two bodies at matching poles and is now pushing with every atom, just _pushing_.

“For what it’s worth,” Cas clears his throat, “I loved you.”

Dean visibly shakes, his eyes tender and so, very sad, “I know. And – uh – me too. Still do.”

“I wish we could…” Cas fumbles for words, _I wish, I wish, I wish_ , “I wish we could have been different.”

“Me too.”

Cas thinks they could have been glorious.

But they are of different worlds now. Cas may never feel at home within his home, but the one thing he knows for certain is that a home is not for him.

The two men part ways with the empty promise to stay in touch, maybe even visit the bunker one day.

“Goodbye, Dean.”


End file.
